A voting booth (also commonly known as a polling booth) is an area, provided within a polling station, for voters to cast their vote. In order to protect the secrecy of the vote, it is necessary to provide the voters with a private area within the polling station, usually by providing a voting compartment. Usually, access to the voting compartment is restricted to a single voter, with exceptions for voters requiring assistance.
Voting in elections generally takes place over a relatively short period (usually one- or two-days) and only on a periodic basis (often annually). Accordingly, polling stations are usually provided in facilities used for other purposes, such as schools, churches, sports halls, local government offices, or even private homes. Such facilities are not generally equipped to accommodate and administer the voting process, and so there is a need for voting booths that can be easily used for relatively short periods of time in a facility not generally used as a polling station.
The present invention finds utility as a voting booth operable between a collapsed state and an expanded state, thereby providing a temporary voting booth for use as a private area within the polling station for voters to cast their vote when otherwise-used facilities act as a polling station, and which can be easily assembled and/or disassembled for ease of transport and storage during times when the facility does not act as a polling station.